Into That Heaven of Freedom…

WHILE EVERY Indian will conjecture as to who will be India’s next prime minister, I thought it would be a better idea to create a wish list of the India we would be better off seeing, no matter who leads us after the elections: an India that would make every Indian proud; that would make every member of the Indian diaspora proud, and an India that successive generations would be proud of and reminisce about with affection and joy. So, here is what I feel my India should be: this is my idea of India and many can have a contrarian view, which too is fine as long as people are thinking through that contrarian view and not following a herd.

One That Belongs to Everyone

I see an India that belongs to everyone. An India that leaves no one behind, be it based on caste or gender, or income. An India that may yet be poor in parts but is not impoverished in terms of making available equal opportunities. Where poverty is not inflicted on you at birth with a rider there is nothing you can do about it. Where opportunities are provided as a right and not as a means of acquiescing to an ideology or a religion.

One That Is Bereft of Hate and Anger

We have been an angry nation since Partition. At that time, we may have had reason to be angry with what life doled out to many, but we as a nation have come a long way since. On the one hand, we extol the virtues of pacificist religions that abound in our country, and yet we use those very religions or faiths as a crutch to propagate the kind of hatred that will eventually consume both the goodness and the potential of India and Indians. We are easily the ‘Republic of Rage’ and this has to change. Anger saps energy and is never a productive emotion. The sooner we realise this, the better off we will be.

One That Rids Itself of Entitlement and Honours Only Merit

One set of entitled people has indeed been replaced by another. Earlier, it may have been class-driven or which school you went to and today, it is the amount of raw wealth you have. Bizarrely, we have diminished the value of a rounded education because we have made a badge of honour of having either no education or an incomplete one. This has to change. Education must give way to knowledge, and I hope it does as we embrace the next five years. That will be the only true civilisational sustenance and will outlive highways and bridges and airports.

One That Is Globally Respected, Not Feared or Reviled

We are the land of Gandhi and Buddha. We cannot be in the unenviable position where people (even though with agendas) begin to decry everything we stand for: be it our democracy or our value architecture, and whether we like it or not, we have to be sensitive to global opinion, no matter how hard it may be. Sometimes engagement is better than denial, and hopefully, we will replace a muscular foreign policy with a more embracing one.

One That Is Focused on the Weakest Link, Not the Strongest Hoop Alone

It is time we recognised that inequality is not an Indian phenomenon alone, but then can we use Indian ingenuity to minimise this gap? Can we create a structure where the weakest link is first strengthened before the adulation of the strongest hoop drowns all in its heady noise?

Where Indianness Is about the Credo and Not about the Language

We can be who we are; speak whatever language (or dialect) we wish; worship whoever is our maker, and yet be Indian. Where we don’t intertwine nationality with nationalism or religion, but with what true Indianness is all about.

And to paraphrase Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, can we awaken into that heaven of freedom?

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